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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 7th, 2014 at 4:00 pm and is filed under New Zealand.
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Auckland – City of fails
Christchurch – The Graded City
Dunedin – Pete George Lives Here
Hamilton – Even the river runs through it
New Plymouth – Come for the twisters, stay cos your wheels were stolen
Wanganui – Free H’s for all
Invercargill – We speak different, we are different
Napier – Rocky beaches for all
Palmerston North – Don’t massey it
Nelson – Gods gift returned
Wellington – We exist because of Government

One does wonder (not too hard mind you) how much is invested(wasted) in coming up with with some of this dross.
I mean Auckland use to be City of Sails- not very imaginative, but is one I thought should’ve been in the “if it ain’t broke” category but no they had to go change it to ‘The big little city’ or something like it anyway. For some reason it reminds of the little engine that could.

It might just be easier to change the name of the city, though: Peterborough or St Petersburg.

I’m puzzled by Ryan Sproull’s 4.51 “Christchurch – Now With Less Racism!”

The fact that it has a higher white people than Auckland is historic, Ryan, not because there’s anything like the Ku Klux Klkan in Christchurch. Nor does Christchurch have yet brown ghettoes like South Auckland and Porirua. And the city gives the local tribe, Ngai Tahu, a lot bigger say in things than Wellington and Auckland’s local tribes get.

So what the fuck were you getting at, Ryan? The fact that they are hacking down the Avon’s weeping willows that are reputedly descended from slips taken from Napoleon’s grave and replacing them with flax and toetoe and slow-growing idigenous trees? I thought that was the opposite of racism.

The fact that it has a higher white people than Auckland is historic, Ryan, not because there’s anything like the Ku Klux Klkan in Christchurch. Nor does Christchurch have yet brown ghettoes like South Auckland and Porirua. And the city gives the local tribe, Ngai Tahu, a lot bigger say in things than Wellington and Auckland’s local tribes get.

So what the fuck were you getting at, Ryan? The fact that they are hacking down the Avon’s weeping willows that are reputedly descended from slips taken from Napoleon’s grave and replacing them with flax and toetoe and slow-growing idigenous trees? I thought that was the opposite of racism.

Yeah, I grew up in Christchurch – the racism I’m talking about isn’t in the City Council or its choice of trees.

Jack5 – Christchurch is the home of Kyle Chapman and his small minded legion. It’s not fair on the rest of Canterbury, but they are NZs best known racists.

Palmerston Nth was “The Knowledge City” from memory. But playing along…

Auckland – you are still 3 hours from your destination.
Christchurch – dull, flat, and insular.
Dunedin – former home of Marc Ellis
Hamilton – No Fords allowed.
New Plymouth – Yes, you need a raincoat.
Wanganui – At least we’re not Palmerston North
Invercargill – meet my wife, cousin, and sister. Yes, they’re one person.
Napier – We got some old buildings and an earthquake zone.
P North – That’s my sheep.
Nelson – Pot available over the hill.

No naming rights, I’m not even Scottish (but I do have a Robbie Burns medal and some of my grandkids are more Scottish than most Dunedinites). And I wasn’t born here. The main street was named after some other dude.

…Christchurch is the home of Kyle Chapman and his small minded legion. It’s not fair on the rest of Canterbury, but they are NZs best known racists….

Chapman does seem to spend most of his time in Christchurch and stands for Mayor at local elections, but he’s from much further south, and that’s where the, ahem, molotov cocktail incident is alleged to have occurred at a marae. He is part Maori, but I believe, not connected to the local tribe, Ngai Tahu.

I think Chapman’s group has demonstrated against Asian immigration, but when he is of mixed race himself, his politics and philosophy become a little more complex, or confused (take your pick).

Chapman has spent a lot of time between Christchurch and the Waikato, and may be spending time between the two areas again, depending on the state of his marriage to a respectable and nice North Island Mormon lady.

I don’t think there has been anti-Semitic vandalism in Christchurch comparable with that in Wellington and Auckland, and where there has been gang activity in the south, it has been multiracial – white gangs and brown gangs, whereas in Wellington and Auckland if you say “gang” you mean a brown gang.

I think it’s pretentious of Wellingtonians and Aucklanders to sneer at Christchurch people as rednecks when Wellingtonians and Aucklanders have much of their own non-white communities ghetto-ised in communities like Porirua and Mangare-Papatoetoe.

Auckland: Big Little City.
Christchurch: Garden City
Dunedin: I am Dunedin. Used to be “Dunedin, it’s all right here”.
Hamilton: Hamilton, more than you expect.
New Plymouth: We aren’t Hamilton
Wanganui: Well worth the trip
Invercargill: Colder than you think
Napier: Art Deco Capital
Palmerston North: John Cleese recommends us
Nelson: Live the day.
Porirua: P-Town
Hutt Valley: Up your Hutt Valley

I always thought “City of Sails” was pretty god as slogans go. Like edhunter (above) I think they should have kept it.
Dunedin’s “It’s all right here” was widely mocked – though I am not sure why.
Invercargill: Where dreams are possible [aka Burt Munro] though that seems to have fallen by the wayside lately.

(Wow – some real sharp wits came up with those lists above. Big careers await in stand up comedy.)

Seriously folks, as far as name recognition goes, everyone in NZ knows Christchurch is the Garden City and Auckland is the City of Sails. Both very apt. Match the city’s character.

But most of the slogans sound contrived. Even “Absolutely positively” if you were honest about it (what the heck does that mean? how is that particularly applicable to Wellington? couldn’t they think of anything meaningful?)
Ask most Aucklanders to tell you what is Wellington’s slogan and they would say “what’s Wellington, do you mean Mount Wellington?” In the end, “Absolutely Positively” is about as silly as “I am Dunedin.”

Just admit it, there isn’t any slogan that fits Wellington except “Windy Wellington”, and that’s the one that most Kiwis from outside Wellington remember.

What’s Wellington got ? A cable car. Hills. Wind. Politicians. Govt drones. Wind. A cable car. Buses with poles. Trains with pantographs. Lots of shitarse bendy little streets. Wind. Houses with 50-100 steps or so many steps they need their own little cable car. Rainbow immigration policy. Come and see the Noah’s Ark variety of recent two minute noodle arrivals. Weirdos who dress funny and all express their ‘individuality’ collectively to create an urban landscape of junky looking junkies.

It’s got nothing much that you can’t do somewhere else. I’d say come to Wellington and see some of the funny suburb layouts and interesting older houses in the city suburbs, some of the views, maybe a ‘bushwalk’. That’s it. Te Papa. But again – museums are in every city.

When you see tourists in Wellington – it just goes to show you that people really don’t care where they go as long as it’s not their own familiar boring home country. Another boring place that’s a slightly different is ok.

If you’re from Wellington – visiting anywhere in Aussie would be cool. Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Perth. The other way round…. how excited are you about coming to Wellington ?